Would You Love Me
by JannP
Summary: Pacey and Joey reconnected after high school and revealing just how connected they are isn't always an easy process for them or the others involved.  AU.  Third of four related oneshots, complete list of related stories inside.


_**A/N: **I want to upload some more of my Dawson's Creek stuff here just because I feel like it. This story, and more specifically it's companion piece are two of my favorites. There are four altogether in this 'verse, but I'm going to have to do some document digging to find the first two. Really, if I go in the order written, it would be like this: **Why Should I Care?, Clear, **this one, and **One Foot on the Water**. Eventually I will post the first two. Enjoy and reply-all ten of you who still read Dawson's Creek fic. _

_**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dawson's Creek or the song; the song is **Would You Love Me? by Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband**. Good luck finding it if you want to listen. It might be somewhere on the band site, but I doubt it so I'm going to try posting the lyrics with it. _

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><p><strong>Would You Love Me?<strong>

Pacey eyed the beach speculatively. It was a relatively slow day, not much in the way of people. It was his best chance for coercion. The fewer witnesses around, the better it was. He wasn't going to point out that they had brought at least two other people with them, both of whom were armed with cameras. No, he wasn't planning on pointing that out to his somewhat skittish girlfriend.

Of course, the changing of the "girlfriend" title wasn't something he was going to mention either. Not just yet.

He dropped his hands to re-secure the tie on his board shorts and simultaneously turned his head to survey the waves a little further out. He was known as a wild sort of guy among his colleagues, and this kind of stuff was part of the reason. He'd spent a certain portion of his youth sailing, culminating in a third place finish in a sailboat race. When he wasn't on a watercraft of some kind, he preferred to be near or in the water. This had turned into a surfing obsession which had almost permanently altered his college plans. He only stayed up north because- well, never mind. Saying it hadn't worked out was an understatement. He had taken his chance to sail, travel, surf, and do all that good stuff after "it" hadn't worked out.

After a low-ranking surf competition finish, a fellow water worshipper had turned him on to body surfing. It didn't take a genius to figure out what he liked about that variety – no board. He tended to be rather "all or nothing" as a surfer. If he _could_ get up, it was a good. If he could _stay _up, it was even better. He'd had a dozen or so runs that were spectacular and gave him the courage to enter a competition. He wasn't going to analyze that with any kind of double entendre. And had he been able to get in a good run for a judge, who knew? He could've been in an entirely different profession now. It would've been fun. But he was perfectly happy with where he was at.

It was nearing dusk, not necessarily an ideal time. But work had come first this morning. He'd been itching to dive in all day, and now he finally had the chance. He raised a hand as a shade to his eyebrows, providing just enough cover that he could better see the golden-tinged waves that were breaking a little further out. Eventually, the water would lap at the shore and engulf his feet, but the wave was cresting far enough out that it would take a minute.

Joey sidled up behind him and slipped her hands over his bare chest. She placed a chaste kiss on his back and leaned her head against him. He smiled slightly, his hand dropping automatically from his face to her forearm. "Hey, there."

"Hey yourself. What are you doing?"

"Well, I was debating giving you the opportunity to cross something off of your bucket list."

She chuckled. "And what would that something be?"

"I know much of your raging desire to try body surfing." He turned toward her. "The waves are looking pretty decent for an elementary attempt. Not too big."

She gave a nervous shrug. "I don't know, Pace. I mean…" she let her sentence drift as her gaze did. "I can swim as well as your average Cape Cod native, but that's about it. You know, enough that I don't die in the water, but I'm not a fish like you." Her mouth curved up in that sweet, half-smiling way. "You know that."

He nodded. "I know that. I also know I want to show you something I really love. The only way I can share it with you is if you try it. It's part of the fun of being with you and all that."

"Watching me eat sand is fun for you?" She asked skeptically.

"Well, now that you mention it…" he teased lightly. "It's not that hard, really."

She turned to face the water head-on. It was such a small thing, but such a simple revelation about the woman she had become. It wasn't like her to turn away once the challenge was laid. She chewed on her bottom lip for a full ten seconds and looked over at him with wide, uncertain eyes. "What do you have to do?"

He cleared his throat. "You go out there where it's a little deeper, and take a second to get a feel for how the waves are coming. You kind of pick a side that you're more comfortable on, and then turn around so the wave catches you from behind. Once it's headed for you, you kick off and let it catch you. You dive down a little and then just hold your body rigid 'til it breaks. After the wave breaks, you kick hard in kind of a mermaid kick, and keep going until you can stand up. That's about it." He turned to look at her. She was still eyeing him skeptically. "Want to watch first?"

"Umm…" she sighed. "Sure. Just be careful, okay?"

He smiled a little. "As careful as I ever am." He waggled his eyebrows and ran right into the water. He was pretty sure he heard her mumble something about "So basically not at all."

He caught a medium sized wave and made it back to the shore without crashing at all. She was fairly sure he made it look easier than it actually was. He claimed to not be all that athletic, but there were moments like these that put those claims to rest. He may not have been a "typical" sort of athlete- he was okay at hockey and fared slightly better at basketball – but in these sports that weren't as mainstream, he did well.

Pacey took her hand slowly and watched her watching the water. She was silent for a minute, building her nerve, and then once she broke the silence she spoke quickly. "Okay, but if we don't go right now I won't do it."

He cracked a smile as they ran toward the water together. He spent the first few waves that passed them showing her the specifics of how to hold her body and what exactly to do. After a few minutes of horsing around, the waves started to come a little faster and he told her it was then or not at all.

The first wave nearly swallowed her whole. They both washed into the shore at the same time, both laughing the same embarrassed laugh; they had both crashed.

Pacey was a little slower to start back out to where they'd been, and from his vantage point he had a very clear view of her second crash. It wasn't a crash so much as she just disappeared for a heart-stopping instant, overtaken by a wave that had become much bigger than it had looked initially.

His breath lodged in his throat as he picked up the pace of his wading, hoping to catch a glimpse of her brown hair bobbing somewhere in the water so he'd know where to go. After the single large wave, the water turned choppy, with nothing big enough for him to sink into so he could catch her faster. He swam against the pull of the lulling tide, racing to find her and hoping she hadn't been hurt.

A couple of smaller waves helped push him to the shore, but he'd always been a strong swimmer and right now, especially right now, his life depended on finding her and making sure she was okay. Had he told her to keep her arms out so she didn't hurt her back? He couldn't remember now, and he felt all the poorer as a teacher for it. This had been risky and foolish.

Three things happened all at once. First, he slid on the larger of the small waves to the shore. Secondly, Joey did the same, coming to rest just two feet away from him. Third, he could tell she was breathing so that was at least something. He had no idea how far under she'd been or for exactly how long. He pulled himself over to her, and heard as he saw evidence that she was choking. She was choking _hard_.

His stomach sank, his breath came sharply. If she was choking, there was little he could do without knowing exactly what she was choking on or why.

She was lying on her back, so he rolled her over to her side, so she was facing him as she continued choking.

"Jo…" he said in a panic as he rubbed her arm with his hand. Her eyes were closed as her body heaved. He was frantic now, knowing that she needed a good deep breath and soon. He had no idea how long she hadn't really been breathing. He sat up, hoping to be able to pull her up.

A small gush of water came out of her mouth as she continued to cough, but after the gush she was a little more responsive. She helped him sit her up, and once she was off the ground, she took a massive breath.

The coughing continued, but its intensity waned and she began gulping in deep breaths of air, the oxygen welcome in her unsteady lungs.

Pacey watched her carefully as she struggled to breathe. Her breathing started to even out and reason came back to her eyes as she searched his face. He caressed her face gently, wiping away some wet sand that was stuck to her forehead. She allowed several deep breaths before her raspy voice could be trusted.

"Thank you."

He raised his eyebrows. "Thank you?" He repeated faintly.

"Thanks for sitting me up," she said. She was still gasping for air, but it wasn't nearly as panicked as it had been.

Pacey's eyes were trained on every inch of her face at once. He carefully moved a clump of hair from her forehead, brushing at the sand that was left behind and smiled faintly. There hadn't been time, in those moments she was choking, to consider what was _really _at stake. It rushed over him like a flood, an overwhelming tide of fear and nausea. There was a bleak instant, less than an instant, where he considered his life without her. There _was_ no life without her. There was nothing to consider. And all they had was now.

"Let's get married."

Joey looked at him, face-to-face, with wide eyes and a constantly changing display of emotion there.

"What?" She said, her voice raspy and her chest still rattled with small coughs.

"You…" he started, and he blew out a nervous breath. He had prepared things to say to her. None of them were anywhere in his mind as he started to speak. It was pure love, pure heart; pure _nerve_. "You have been the only person I could see for as long as I can remember. Before we dated, before we grew up together, before everything I swear, there was you. I don't know how to explain it, really. But you help me be the very best version of myself. These last nine months have been the easiest, the best, and the most complete of my life. I can't go back now because you are just everything to me, Jo. Telling you that I love you – well, that pales in comparison to how I feel. It's the very least I feel. There just aren't words. I know we haven't really talked about it, but I kinda have my heart on my sleeve here and, um… I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have a question to ask you. It's an important one." He cleared his throat and took that split second to survey her face.

Really, her face would tell him if he needed to continue or not. He wasn't one hundred percent that she was prepared to accept something like that. They'd never even talked of getting married – not yet.

"Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

Joey's throat hitched a little. He heard the almost inaudible click as she took another breath to start over. For just a heartbeat, he hoped she wasn't choking, but was instead choked up. Somehow, through the saltwater, he knew she was crying. "Yes," she finally managed. He beamed back at her, his pure happiness in that instant radiating through his smile and all around.

He cupped her face in his hands. There was no room for doubt, no room for self-consciousness, in his unabashed joy. "Yes," he echoed, finally moving forward to seal his lips over hers. They mutually forgot time and place, lost in the soaking wet warmth of each other. He took both her hands in his and helped her up.

"Now, I believe it's traditional to offer some of sort of incentive when you ask the girl of your dreams to marry you," he started conversationally as they began retreating from the tide line toward their spot on the beach.

"Incentive?" She asked, and looked over at him. "Isn't the life with you the incentive?"

"Well, sure. I was going for something a little more tangible."

"What's more tangible than a lifetime?"

"Okay, maybe something a little more immediately tangible."

She looked at him with a confused scowl and shook her head. "I have no idea what you're trying to say."

They reached their bags, and she immediately bent over to get her towel and wrap it around her. There was something cold about nearly choking; even if his kiss had warmed her up nicely she wanted to fold herself in the soft cotton.

He fumbled in his khaki colored messenger bag for a minute and then casually tossed something at her, which she caught with mostly luck and little reflex. She visibly swallowed as she looked at the small black box.

"Open it." His voice was all of a sudden very close, and very intimate.

"You've thought about this a lot," she murmured, letting the towel fall as she ran her newly free hand over the soft box lid. "I'm just catching up." She raised her eyes to his slowly, studying his for any sign of hesitation.

He smiled softly. "I guess we could go completely traditional."

She chuckled nervously. "What would that be like? It's never really been our style."

His smile faded into an expression that was altogether even more pleasant. "Maybe we should do this right." He took the box from her loose grip and dropped down to one knee before her. He could feel the eyes of the other two crew members on him. This was far more conspicuous than the other moment they had shared at the water's edge. He flipped the box open and was surprised that he had to swallow twice before he could get the words out again.

"Will you marry me, Jo?"

Joey's smile this time was not hesitant. She was done choking, so that was a big plus. She had been given a few minutes to turn the hugeness of all this over in her mind; her beautifully over-analytical, skittish mind. The thought of saying no hadn't occurred to her, but she knew in this split second that it never would. She would love him, always trust him, and knew he would reciprocate.

"Yes. Nothing would make me happier."

She blinked once to let the tears drop again and got her first clear view of the beautiful ring inside the black velvet box. It was a simple one karat cushion cut diamond with probably 20 small round diamonds in a silver band.

She stretched her left hand out before him. With uncharacteristic smoothness, and very characteristic bravado, he removed the ring from the box and slipped it on her ring finger. He tucked her fingers into his, kissed the back of her hand and then stood back up to embrace her in a bear hug. He pulled back to kiss her soundly on the lips, once again forgetting time and place.

As their awareness was gradually restored, they both realized they were being photographed mercilessly. They pulled away from each other, sort of, just long enough to shoot a dirty look at his co-workers.

"How about some privacy here?" He grumbled in their general direction, knowing it would not be allowed. First off, the sun was actually setting now and everything around them was bathed in gold light. It was a photographer's dream. Secondly, it was Pacey and the other photographers knew no one would believe them that he had actually committed to something. He might actually be required to stay in one place and really settle down with this new commitment. It didn't jive with the mental image they all had of him.

"Turn her around so I can get both your faces," Joe said, completely bypassing Pacey's mock sullenness. There was nothing he could do to hide the peaceful happiness he was exuding.

Pacey felt Joey sigh as she settled in to his embrace. He left his arm protectively crossing her chest, and she placed both her hands on his forearm. He put his head on her shoulder so he could whisper something in her ear.

"Sorry, I kind of forgot about them."

She laughed widely. "Me, too," she admitted.

He kissed her cheek swiftly. "Thank you."

She turned her head toward him as much as she could. He turned his head so that, although sideways, he could see her eyes. "For loving me."

Joey smiled beautifully. "You're so cheesy."

"Just another wonderful quality for you to love, Potter," he said and planted a kiss on her nose.

"Your humility is also right up there."

He chuckled at her dry comeback. "Aw, you love me."

"You bug me." She bit back. Her smile took the sting out of the words, and put something entirely indescribable into his heart.

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><p><em>I should have known she wouldn't listen<em>

_I should have known she'd pass me by_

_I should have known better to listen to the lullaby_

_'Cause it's a sad, sad song I hear_

_And a long, long road I fear without you_

_Without you_

_Would you love me?_

_Always trust me?_

_Would you love me, if it won't hurt you at all?_

_If it won't hurt you at all._

_I should have known she'd leave me standing_

_I should have known she wouldn't go_

_I should have known better than to_

_Turn on the television show_

_'Cause every time I look I see,_

_The wrong episode is me without you_

_Without you_

_Would you love me?_

_Always trust me?_

_Would you love me, if it won't hurt you at all?_

_If it won't hurt you at all._

_So please be careful my heart,_

_Right from the start_

_'Cause it's not that easy coming down_

_Before it all falls apart,_

_Would it be so plain to see?_

_Would you love me?_

_Always trust me?_

_Would you love me, if it won't hurt you at all?_

_If it won't hurt you at all…_

_If it won't hurt you at all…_

_If it won't hurt you at all._

_(Would You Love Me- Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband)_


End file.
